Profile

Walter Pike (@walterpike), the founder of PiKE | New Marketing (www.pike.co.za), brings data, tech, social science and marketing, advertising and PR skills together in a Social 3.0 methodology called DIRECTED ACTIVISM which he then deploys in brands, social change and political election campaigns.

Provides INSIGHTS into Social Networks by analysing their structure and the roles of participants and recommends strategy based on that.

Professional PUBLIC SPEAKER on the future of Advertising.

Walter Pike holds the degrees of Bachelor of Commerce and the Masters Degree in Business Leadership and has held the post of Head of Faculty: Marketing and Advertising at the AAA School of Advertising which is the leading advertising school in Africa. He was also the founder of the Digital Academy which was the first educational institute to offer a google accredited course in the world. He is on the academic advisory council of the Tswane University of Technology and on the academic advisory council of the Global Chief Marketing Office Council based in San Francisco.

He combines his academic background with intense and broad experience in marketing companies particularly in the motor manufacturing sector withe Ford and Nissan and with leading advertising agencies as both Head of Strategy and Head of Client Service. He has consulted to the leading PR company in Africa and global PR leaders in London.

He delivered a regular spot on The Internet Economy a weekly program on Classic FM, and has appeared on SABC TV, CNBCAfrica and on the media show on SAFM. He is also a regular guest on the Beancast network a leading marketing podcast from the USA, is an Opinionista for the Daily Maverick the top online publication. As a professional public speaker he has spoken at marketing, tech and social media conferences throughout the country.

He is the founder of PiKE which is engaged in strategy development using a proprietary methodology called Directed Activism, which is focussed on the strategic integration of communications tools in the post-broadcast era. It uses traditional broadcast media, PR and social media in the markets of social change, branding and politics in order to devote winning brands and outcomes.

Walter was recently involved in two presidential campaigns in sun-saharan Africa.

Walter a divorced father of 3, plays Polo in Johannesburg, is a flyfisherman and a photographer.

All election campaign managers know the importance of targeting the swing voters. The theory is that in any campaign, there's a group of voters who will support one political party or another no matter what...

Quite honestly I am not going to go down the road of criticising FNB for getting involved in either politics or religion with its "You Can Help" campaign. Although on that subject I have to point out that as a global megatrend there is a strong argument that says that corporates need to involve themselves with social issues. Ask Starbucks what it feels to be on the receiving end of not doing so.

General Motors (GM), the third biggest advertising spender in the US, has announced that it would no longer be allocating any budget to Facebook advertising because paid ads on the site have little impact on consumers' car purchases, according to a GM official. This news has had the web buzzing with wildly differing views. Here's my take.

I have a slide in my deck which I often pull out when I want to talk about how advertising has lost much of its power. It's a research-based index of the trustworthiness of various professions. There is no surprise that, at the bottom of list, taking pride of place as the least trustworthy of all professions are politicians. Second from the bottom are advertising specialists...

I was speaking at an event on Thursday afternoon, 23 February 2012, about the changing media landscape and the inability of companies to control the conversation, the need to listen and understand the discussion and what is happening in the community, and rather the need to facilitate the discussion. Afterwards, I checked my Twitter stream - and saw the start of the Standard Bank/FNB firestorm. It was almost as if they had done it to help me make my point.

In 2012, things will stay the same. Everyone still believes that marketing has not changed and that social is a channel. Yes they are starting to understand how important channel is but they have not and will not grasp just how much.

South African corporates are in the process of getting to grips with social media and what it really means and how to make it work. The biggest of all the disinformation in the market is that it's merely another channel and the principles of marketing stay the same. The truth is that it's nothing like what has been understood as marketing.

If you visit apple.com today, Thursday, 6 October 2011, you will be greeted with a black and white picture with the title "Steve Jobs (1955 -2011)" - a simple elegant tribute to a legend, a master marketer who understood that the brand is built by the customers' experience and by what they tell their friends. He also understood how to look at the world and totally disregard the status quo and reinvent it afresh.

Nando's is a master at opportunistic advertising, frequently managing to take advantage of the buzz in the market and turning the conversation to be about itself. The late 2010 campaign poking fun at Cell C was excellent, as was Cell C's way of dealing with it, and it had the opportunity to kick on from here with a proper new marketing campaign - but it has blown it. [video]

Once upon a time when I was the client services director at an ad agency in Cape Town I advised a client to reallocate the bulk of his advertising budget to solve the problem because as I said to him - "there is no advertising solution to this - we'll spend your ad budget next financial year".

2010 was the year that the penny indeed dropped. It was the year that the leading brands and marketing thinkers realised that the marketing environment was no longer the same; that the dynamics had changed. Consequently, I believe 2011 is going to be the rush for digital skills.

Can you imagine the scene? Nando's marketing team, agency, digital team and PR trying to work out the best time to release the Nando's CEO parody campaign. Phone calls to lawyers working out the possible action should Cell C respond, as could reasonably be expected, with a court interdict.

I love the Nando's CEO campaign, but it's still an old school advertising campaign in the 'interrupting the viewer' model. There is no doubt that it's witty and clever and it uses multiple channels effectively, but I'm not convinced that it will retain appeal after the initial reaction from viewers.